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Today’s Botanical Artists On Drawing Branches

9) Any advice on drawing and painting branches? I have so much trouble with this.

Wendy Hollender: Study the branches closely, first without any leaves. Winter is great for this. Draw them with all the detail you would put in a flower. Pay attention to how they change direction and thickness. Lay a branch next to a straight edge for comparison.

Rayma Kempinsky Peterson: Branches are a challenge. I usually draw them in early in the composition stage. Many of the trees in Western Canada are not brown. I draw them and leave them white for a time. Then as the painting progresses, I fill them in leaving a lot of the white. Aspen and birch barks are especially light-colored. Aspen bark is often light green. Remember that many branches and twigs have nodes as important parts of their anatomy. Often a twig will be straight in between nodes.

Louise Smith: When I have long and smoothly-curved branches or stems, I use a large French curve in my final drawing version. I will then lightly paint an outline that follows the drawn line which will serve as a “dike” once I get on with painting. Form in small spaces is likely to be drybrush and wash, wider branches may be all wash and glazing. I always use morphological information that the plant supplies to help describe form.

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